I don't understand "states' rights"

President Obama says that his views of same-sex marriage "are evolving." That's a pretty carefully crafted accommodation to the political reality he is in.

Some years back as a state senator, I believe, he made a statement that seemed supportive of gay marriage; at least it hinted at it. Later running for president he said that his personal view was that marriage was for a man and a woman. Then he came out against DOMA -- but then one can be against DOMA without being pro-marriage for gays and lesbians.

His latest position is that it should be left up to the states, and that the way New York did it was the right process. I think we can read into this that he is saying that, although he might not personally approve, he supports the states' right to decide.

Of course, he's in a re-election campaign where he has to fight against a powerful, conservative mis-information machine that will demonize him from A to Z. Coming out fully for gay marriage would simply put one more nuke in their arsenal. So this position is just fine. I believe after the election, he is likely to "evolve" further and reveal his full support.

But this raises for me the puzzle. I have no idea what the rationale is for deciding what issues the states have sovereignty over and what are federal prerogatives. I know about the interstate commerce clause that is the justification for lots of federal regulations and laws that over-rule state laws. And of course there is the bill of rights.

Common sense would tell me though that something as basic as the freedom from discrimination and the right to marry should be the same for all citizens of the United States, just as the other freedoms are. We don't allow states to discriminate against people for race, religion, ethnicity, or disability. Abortion seems a hybrid. We have Roe v Wade to protect the basic right of a woman to choose; but we allow states to chip away at the edges to a crippling degree.

But sexual orientation and marriage -- a different story. It's still not generally accepted that there is a "right to marry," even though the Supreme Court said there was in the 1967 Loving v Virginia decision that eliminated laws against marrying someone of another race.

I guess it's the lag in bringing our laws in line with changing social mores and attitudes. But it just doesn't seem right for generations to have to wait. My prediction is that this is the place that social and attitudinal change will ultimately influence the lawmakers and bring action at the federal level. Getting rid of DADT and DOMA will help move that along.

Ralph

Gay marriage voted in by NY legislature ! ! ! ! !

In a cliff-hanger vote tonight, the New York Senate made history by passing a bill to allow same-sex marriage in New York. The state's other house, the more liberal Assembly, had already passed a very similar bill and is expected to quickly approve this bill, which gives more protection to religious groups to choose not to perform same-sex ceremonies. Governor Andrew Cuomo has not only said that he will sign the bill, he was a major force behind pushing for the vote.

Because New York is the third most populous state, this one law will more than double the number of people living in a state with gay marriage. It will likely also rekindle efforts to pass similar bills, which failed last year in New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Maryland, as did a bill in New York.

Five states -- Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Vermont, plus the District of Columbia -- now allow gay marriage. New York makes six. And then there is California with the on-again, off-again status of Proposition 8, now working its way through appeals in the federal court system and headed for the U. S. Supreme Court.

Good for New York !!!

Ralph

Even Repubs are sometimes right

Charles Krauthammer, MD, psychiatrist who became a conservative columnist instead (and a good thing for all the psychiatric patients he might have mistreated) is one conservative dude that I love to hate and to write scornful comments about.

However, even he can be right, occasionally. In today's column (AJC), he says that the U. S. Constitution needs an update concerning the balance of powers to declare war. Krauthammer disagrees sharply with President Obama's position that he does not need to consult Congress about our role in Libya. Obama has asserted that we are not engaged in "hostilities" and therefore not subject to the War Powers Act.

But Krauthammer goes on to say that the constitutional authority that gives Congress the sole power to declare war is archaic and obsolete, because in the modern world:

No one declares war anymore. Since World War II, we’ve been involved in five major wars, and many minor engagements, without ever declaring war.

But it’s not just us. No one does. Declarations of war are a relic of a more aristocratic era, a time when, for example, an American secretary of state closed his department’s code-cracking office because “gentlemen do not read each other’s mail.”

The power to declare war has become, through no fault of anyone, archaic and obsolete. Taken literally, it is as useless as granting Congress the right to regulate horse-and-buggies.

We need, therefore, some new way to fulfill the original constitutional intent. The WPR [War Powers Act] was a good try, but it failed because it was the work of Congress alone, which tried to shove it down the throat of the Executive, which, in turn, for over three decades has resisted it as an encroachment on the inherent powers of the commander in chief.

Krauthammer says that we need a new constitutional understanding, one that both Congress and the Executive Branch can agree on, to meet the needs for quick action but with some consulting and oversight role for Congress.

It seems to me that both parties should agree with that. If we could only have time enough when we are not at war abroad, or when the Dems and Repubs are not so at war with each other, that we could cooperate on something that makes sense and is sorely needed.

Ralph

Palin fatigue

When will this Palin-family-mania end?

So after the "family vacation" cum media extravaganza stepped all over Mitt Romney's announcement day plans, and after Palin's cat and mouse game with the media ended, she has (blessedly) been staying home.

But the MSM is so fascinated with everything Palin that they now write about her Tweets.

And then there is Bristol, who has her own media following, plus a new book and all the public roll-out featuring the titillating factoid that Bristol lost her virginity to Levi while she was drunk. Aren't you just thrilled to know that?

But the absolute height of nauseating Palin-fatigue happened to me just now, when I read on Huffington Post what Sarah had written on her Twitter or Facebook or something about Bristol's new book.

Come on. Is that the important news of the moment? What one Palin thinks about another one's new book?

President Obama just made a speech about war. Is there really a need to know what Mama Grizzly thinks about Cub-ette Bristol's losing her virginity?

OK, Ralph. But why are YOU writing about it?

Duh . . .

R.

Predicting the GOP field

Going out on a limb here, but here's where I see the GOP contest at present:

1. Reports just in suggest that Michele Bachmann is gaining momentum in Iowa (she was born there and lives in next-state Minnesota). In fact, in a Zogby poll taken after the debate, she had zoomed to first place -- not just in Iowa.

She appeals to the very conservative GOP base there, and is to be taken seriously, at least as a spoiler for Pawlenty. A win for her in Iowa would be a major blow to Pawlenty's plan of being the last one standing and the least objectionable alternative to Romney at the end.

2. Romney likely wins big in New Hampshire -- next door state, he was a close second to McCain in 2008, and independents can vote in either primary. Jon Huntsman might be the bigger challenger to him there. If Pawlenty doesn't win Iowa and likely won't do well in NH or SC, then he's probably out.

3. If Bachmann continues to gain in Iowa, and given the support she has in South Carolina too, then look to Rick Perry to jump in as the alternative to the more moderate Romney and Huntsman. Even more important, he would be the "Stop Bachmann" candidate; the GOP establishment is not going to let her win, and pressure will mount for Perry to jump in.

4. Coming out of those early primaries, my prediction is that it will narrow down to: Romney, Perry, Huntsman, and Bachmann. But then she'll fade when they get outside her Tea Party territory.

5. Huntsman is too "moderate" for the party in 2012, but I think he's laying groundwork for 2016.

6. Cain, Paul, Santorum will drop along the way as their niche candidacies falter.

7. Notice who I didn't even mention.

Ralph

Huh?

A dubious creativity abounds among Repubs looking for new ways to bash the more liberal, sane members of our political spectrum -- namely the Democrats and the causes they stand for.

Sometimes they can sound downright deranged in the stretch to come up with something new:

1. Senator John McNothing claims that the vast wildfires raging through Arizona were set by illegal immigrants.

“They have set fires because they signal others, they have set fires to keep warm, and they have set fires in order to divert law enforcement agents and agencies from them. The answer to that part of the problem is to get a secure border."

A Forest Service employee said there is no evidence that the fires were caused by illegal immigrants. Maybe McNothing is confusing them with the aliens from outer space -- don't they have a lot of them there . . . oh, no, actually I believe that's not Arizona but Roswell, New Mexico where they have all the UFO sightings.

2. Rick Santorum claims that global warming is a liberal conspiracy to put government in control of your lives. He told this to Rush Limbaugh in an interview in early June:

. . .it's a beautifully concocted scheme because they know that the earth is gonna cool and warm. It's been on a warming trend so they said, "Oh, let's take advantage of that and say that we need the government to come in and regulate your life some more because it's getting warmer," just like they did in the seventies when it was getting cool, they needed the government to come in and regulate your life because it's getting cooler. It's just an excuse for more government control of your life . . .

3. Rick Santorum (again) claims that the abysmal scores on standardized history tests by our high school students is the fault of "the left." Not of teachers, parents or even the students themselves, but of "the left." Here's the quote:

"This is, in my opinion, a conscious effort on the part of the left who has a huge influence on our curriculum, to desensitize America to what American values are so they are more pliable to the new values that they would like to impose on America."

Hmmm . . . so what about the Texas school board rewriting textbooks to conform with their view of history and science? Imposing their theocratic, unscientific views on school curricula; extolling Phyllis Schlafly and Billy Graham, but not Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King, Jr. Creationism. That's OK?

4. But Nut Gingrich may be the champion of the deranged claim. He's toned it down a bit since he wants to be taken seriously as a presidential candidate -- but that hasn't worked out too well for him either. Here are some of his doozies from the past:

a. The Democrats . . . are “left-wing radicals” who lead a “secular socialist machine," who have produced “the greatest political corruption ever seen in modern America.” Plus: “The secular-socialist machine represents as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union once did."

b. He compared the Muslims who wanted to open an Islamic center in Lower Manhattan to the German Reich, saying it “would be like putting a Nazi sign next to the Holocaust Museum.”

c. Last year, he called for a federal law to stop the (nonexistent) onslaught of Sharia on American jurisprudence and accused the left of refusing to acknowledge its “mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it.”

d. He said that Barack Obama displayed “Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior.”

e. Advocates for gay rights are imposing a “gay and secular fascism” using violence and harassment, blacks have little entrepreneurial tradition, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the Supreme Court is a "Latina woman racist."

Somewhat sadly, I take note that soon we may not have Nut to kick around any longer. Financial reckoning comes with campaign financial reports due at the end of June. And his campaign is not even on life support. They can't afford it -- or maybe they're charging it to the Tiffany account.

Ralph

Nut #15 - How long does it take for a ship to sink?

Once a huge hole has been blown in the side of a ship, how long does it take for the ship to sink?

A huge hole was blown in the side of Nut's campaign ship 2 weeks ago, when 16 of his key staff members resigned en masse, along with his entire Iowa operation.

Nut "felt relieved," he said, because now he could run the kind of campaign he wants -- which is one of ideas. But it takes people on the ground to arrange the rallies where people will come to hear your ideas -- unless he plans a TV-Twitter campaign.

Since then, Nut remains stuck in the polls in the also-ran category. But energizer bunny just keeps on keeping on.

Now the top two members of his fund-raising team have quit, too. And the campaign is reportedly more than $1,000,000 in debt, chiefly due to Nut and Callista's travel expenses. She has to get home for choir practice, and all that.

Of course, Nut and Callista have enough money from their lucrative book, DVD, and film productions, and from his speaking career to finance it all themselves. Will they? It seems to me that, if they start doing that, they defeat what must surely be the main purpose in Nut's running for prez -- to enhance the income from books, DVDs, and speaking fees. He clearly is not going to win.

Quarterly finance reports are due soon. It's going to be humiliating on top of all the defections (unreplaced as yet) and make him look even more like the loser that he is.

Surely this ship will sink beneath the waves . . . soon.

Ralph

"Get Over It" -- now tell that to the Repubs in Congress

That's short, sweet, and to the point: "Get over it."

Sgt. Major Michael Barrett is the top enlisted man in the Marines and senior enlisted adviser to the Marine Corps. Commandant Gen. James Amos, who says of Sgt. Maj. Barrett, "He's the best of the best."

Sgt. Major Barrett was meeting with troops at a base in South Korea last week, when the subject of accepting gays and lesbians serving openly now that DADT is being repealed.

From the Huffington Post:

The Wall Street Journal reports that Sgt. Maj. Barrett brought out a small copy of the Constitution and referenced Article 1, Section 8. “It says, ‘Raise an army.’ It says absolutely nothing about race, color, creed, sexual orientation.” He then asked if everyone in the group joined the Marines to protect their nation, going on to say, “How dare we, then, exclude a group of people who want to do the same thing you do right now, something that is honorable and noble?”

Sgt. Maj. Barrett concluded by saying “Get over it… Let’s just move on, treat everybody with firmness, fairness, dignity, compassion and respect. Let’s be Marines.”

Indeed !!! That's leadership. Now if someone -- like maybe President Obama or Defense Secretary Gates would just say that to the Repubs in Congress who are still trying to sabotage the repeal (Yes, I'm talking about YOU, Sen. McNothing). Only they seem to care. The general attitude among the troops is "What's the big deal?"

So, Just Get Over It, you jerks !!!

Ralph

Fascinating but meaningless

At this stage, presidential preference polls are almost meaningless. Still, they fascinate me as a sort of tracking of where things stand. Of course, in such straw polls, there's no attempt to make it a representative sample. This latest is skewed by many factors: who attended and spoke at the meeting, who made a big effort to have his supporters attend and vote, and what region it was held in (the South, here).

All of this makes the straw poll taken at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans this weekend badly skewed. But for what it's worth, here are the results:

1. Ron Paul - 612.
2. Jon Huntsman - 382.
3. Michele Bachmann - 191.
4. Herman Cain - 104.
5. Mitt Romney - 74.
6. Newt Gingrich - 69.
7. Sarah Palin - 41.
8. Rick Santorum - 30.
9. Tim Pawlenty - 18.

Ron Paul does well in these straw polls, because he reportedly packs the audience with his supporters. And he gets most of the libertarian vote, while everybody else is divided 10 or 12 ways. Jon Huntsman is the big surprise here. He did speak to the convention and is impressive, but he is clearly the most liberal in the group on social issues. You might say that, like Paul with libertarians, Huntsman easily gets all the moderate vote (assuming there are still a few).

Bachmann and Cain clearly were the Tea Party darlings, reflecting their 3rd and 4th place showings.

Romney, sort of ho-hum in 5th place, and Newt is stuck in 6th -- among Southern Repubs. So much for basing his campaign in a pretend office space in Atlanta. What a sham. It was simply window dressing for the opening announcement. The rented furniture has already been returned, and the office sits unused.

And what about poor Tim Pawlenty in 9th place, about 1% of the voters? He just can't seem to catch hold. And yet many pundits still see him as the eventual nominee -- as the consensus candidate who nobody really dislikes.

Interesting to watch this unfold.

Ralph

Deficits and jobs

For the Repubs, it's simple and clear: To create jobs, you Cut Spending. Cut Taxes. Cut Regulations that cost businesses. Do all that and the Money Will Flow. People will have jobs and the government will get revenue. And Prosperity for Wealthy People Will Trickle Down to the Little People.

The trouble with this argument is that corporations' failure to create jobs is not due to lack of money to hire. They are sitting on huge sums of money that could be invested in new jobs, but they're not. Their argument is that people aren't buying, so there is no great demand for more goods and more jobs to produce them.

The Republicans want to keep it this way to keep pressure on, to make full use of the deficit and looming default in order to justify shrinking the size of government and force the cutting of social network programs due to lack of funds -- the real and forever goal.

The other trouble with this argument is that it just doesn't work out that way, Ronald Reagen's claims notwithstanding. They memorized this false Reagen mantra that says: cut taxes and the economy will improve and jobs will be created.

The truth, as I see it, is that people aren't buying because they don't have jobs or money to spend. So where do you intervene in this equation? The Repubs want to reward those "who create jobs," while the Dems want to have the government create jobs with stimulus money (or with public works jobs, if they dared and could get it passed).

Robert Reich, Clinton's Sec. of Labor was on This Week last Sunday. He argued for immediate creating of public works jobs like WPA and CCC to give people real jobs. Private industry isn't creating jobs, so the government has to do it temporarily. This then puts people to work doing real things that benefit the country (instead of just paying out unemployment benefits), and it puts money in the pockets of workers, who will spend it and create demand, which increases production and creates more jobs.

Larry Summers was also on tv that morning. His advice was: more economic stimulus and cut payroll taxes for workers and middle class in the short term and worry about the deficit later. This is Larry Summers? Friend of Wall Street? Part of Obama's mistake in choosing his economic team, in my opinion. Where was he when the first stimulus was way too small?

I'm convinced of this plan and have been since the crisis first hit.
But does what makes sense matter any more in this political climate? There sat Senator Shelby on the same program with Reich. Shelby is on the Senate Finance Committee, and he just flatly declared that stimuluses don't work, and we must cut spending and do tax reform instead. There seems to be no convincing them.

So what's to be done? You can't get anything much done in the Senate if a determined minority is willing to use the filibuster. And you can't convince the Republicans that their Reagen mantra is wrong. So we wound up with a much-too-small stimulus in 2008 -- which wasn't enough to do the job; and then Repubs point and say: look, it didn't work and we wasted all that money. When what was needed instead was a larger stimulus and a public works programs to give people jobs.

Here's the real question. What happened to the move to change the filibuster rules so that it gave the minority party the power to delay legislation temporarily, but removed the power to permanently prevent a vote? At the beginning of this year, it seemed like the Dems had the votes but they backed away -- and it was going to be taken up again later. What happened? I've heard no more about it.

Ralph